Celebrity Scoop: David Spade

Kate O'HareZap2It

One might think that someone who's part of CBS' highly successful Monday comedy block might prefer to jet off to some luxury resort during the production hiatus.

But for David Spade of "Rules of Engagement," returning this fall for its fifth season, the choice was to either do a movie -- which didn't work out this time -- or get back onstage and do some stand-up comedy.

"I still do stand-up," he says, "to keep the Jetta payments going."

Turns out he's not the only one, as Spade discovered when he played the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

"I thought it was going to be, like, nine people in the crowd on a Tuesday," Spade says, "and it was packed to the gills. Then I started feeling like Adam Sandler in 'Funny People,' because I had a driver drop me off."

(In the 2009 movie, Sandler played a stand-up nobody who became very successful starring in bad big-screen comedies.)"I go, 'Oh, my God, I've turned into this idiot,' " Spade continues. "I walked in, and I had to bump someone. They said, 'You're on in 20,' I go, 'Ah.' They say, 'You want to go next?' I say, 'Yeah.' Then I see someone whisper, 'What?'

"And then Louis C.K. comes up behind me. 'You're next?' 'Yeah.' 'I'm going to go on after you,' which also offended me that he wasn't worried at all. He wasn't worried that I was going to kill so bad that he couldn't go behind me. At least think for a second. He just didn't care.

"So I went on and said, 'Oh, my God, this place has jumped the shark. The guy from "Grown Ups" is here." That crowd is very good for me, because there's Louis C.K. and these cool comics that people don't really know and aren't household names. Every throwaway joke, they loved."